


Stubborn

by dotfic



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-05-21
Updated: 2006-05-21
Packaged: 2017-10-11 13:33:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/112944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dotfic/pseuds/dotfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Like the song says, "But if you try sometimes..."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stubborn

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to for her beta reading and insights.
> 
> Set post Devil's Trap. At the time this was written, speculative for Supernatural S2. Long since rendered AU.

John Winchester was grateful for many things both small and large.

He stood in Bobby Singer's garage, which smelled of oil, and dog food, and cold concrete, leaning heavily on his cane, and was grateful that he stood and that he wasn't in a wheelchair.

He was grateful for Bobby and his shotgun filled with rock salt, who got there before the ambulance and the highway patrol, not in time to see the crash but in time to shoot the possessed driver of the eighteen-wheeler just as he was wrenching open the driver's side door, reaching for Sam.

Or so he learned afterwards.

For what was now far too many times, he was again grateful that hospitals would tend to the bleeding, battered, and unconscious first, and ask questions about health insurance, credit cards, and billing addresses later.

That was just a drop in the bucket compared to his gratitude that his sons stood with him. Dean winced when he moved but was otherwise mostly upright, his t-shirt concealing the large bandage that covered one half of his chest. Sam's face was still a swollen mess, and there were two small bandages covering his right temple and the side of his neck. His arm was in a sling.

But they stood. Swaying a little on their feet, maybe.

Bobby had gotten the Impala, towed it to the salvage yard himself, and put it up on blocks in the garage.

It was too much, from a guy who cursed his name. So John was grateful that Bobby's anger was the kind that burned hot and long, but didn't consume everything in its path. There were things in Bobby brighter than his anger.

But he wouldn't speak to John, just to Sam and Dean. Dean told him how Bobby sat by John's bedside while the boys were too weak to do it themselves. Sat up all night, even though when John finally awoke, Bobby said only "The boys are alive," then immediately left the room.

None of them moved any closer to the car. They just stood in a row, one cane, one sling, one hidden bandage, hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil, the treads of their shoes seeming to dig into the stained concrete floor.

The driver's side faced the back wall, with the passenger side towards them, a gash of broken glass, twisted black chassis, the door dented in to crush the front passenger seat.

Most of all, John was grateful the truck had hit on the passenger side, his side, because Sam was driving and Dean had been slumped against the window of the back seat behind Sam, and that meant they were on the other side of the car from the impact. It was all he'd been able to give them at that moment, fate placing him between the boys and a destructive force.

He didn't share this thought with them. Sam would look even sadder, and Dean would be furious at his father for even thinking it.

His oldest child went over to the Impala, walked around to the driver's side, and straightened the rearview mirror. John glanced over at his youngest child, and watched with concern as the blood drained from his face.

The futility of Dean's gesture gnawed at something deep within John.

"Maybe we can rebuild it, son."

"I don't think so."

There was no defeat in Dean's voice, just a quiet acceptance of hard fact.

John wished fiercely...he didn't know what he wished.

* * *

  
Sam coughed against the dust in the garage, and then winced. His whole right side ached, but the pain centered in his shoulder and neck. The bandages itched.

The walk across the yard to the garage had taken an eternity. Every step was pain. Sam bit his lip, not in agony, but to bite back his frustration as both John and Dean refused any help Sam offered them. Because it seemed to Sam that while he was the one who moved like an initiate being tested over hot coals, his brother and father moved like they were made of cracked glass, and if any more pressure was applied they would crumble.

Which was ridiculous. If there was one thing Dean and Dad would never do, it was crumble.

They entered the garage, and the three of them stopped.

When Sam saw the state of the Impala, his throat constricted, and when he looked at Dean, his brother's eyes went someplace where Sam never wanted to, and couldn't, follow.

It was just a car. Like the apartment near Stanford was just old wood and creaky doors and moldy tiles in the bathroom, a place to stay until he and Jess could move into something nicer, someday...the thought of Jess still made a hole in his chest, and he almost, not quite, imagined her scent, her head leaning against his good shoulder as they surveyed the destruction of the car together.

Dean was the first to move. He limped over to the Impala, lightly touched the dented hood, walked around it to the far side, where the mirror was twisted too far forward. Dean adjusted it minutely, until it was just where he'd want it to be if he were going to drive.

It just about undid Sam. Against the rest of the devastation, Dean's small gesture made his stomach lurch and he wondered for a moment if he was going to throw up.

"Maybe we can rebuild it, son," Dad said.

"I don't think so," said Dean, his voice rasping.

_It's just a car_, Sam wanted to scream at them, at the same time he knew this, too, was ridiculous. Because to Dean it wasn't.

He wanted to say to his brother, _You're just giving up?_ but anyone looking at the Impala could see it was gone. After Bobby drove the tow into the yard, he'd hopped out of the cab of his Ford, pursed his lips, and spat on the ground. Sam remembered Bobby's different looks for the cars that got to his salvage yard. There was a gleam when it was something he could fix up and sell. He spat if the thing was only so much scrap.

Then Bobby had noticed Sam watching him and immediately looked guilty, as if he hadn't meant to reveal his opinion. Which he probably hadn't.

* * *

  
_Goddamn sonuvabitch totaled my car._

What did a car mean besides a 5.7 liter engine with 350 horse power and metal put together just so? Or a house beyond brick and wood with a gnarled tree in the front yard?

It was a miracle all three of them hadn't been completely crushed. Maybe it was Sam's devil's trap on the trunk mitigating some of the impact.

Sometimes a miracle meant a brother with a head for symbols, incantations, and Latin.

Dean's eyes went from the dented black metal of the passenger side to his father standing beside him, and not for the first time marveled at John's stubborn toughness.

Maybe it was the toughness of the car too, and Dean felt a flash of pride that a vehicle designed for speed, power and looks had proved so sturdy against the onslaught. It probably would have been the same if they'd been in a Volvo.

He looked away from his father, back to the car, and thought of his mother's fiery ghost, immolating itself to save them from the poltergeist in Lawrence.

Dean moved finally, trying to hide the winces, and walked around Impala, trailing his fingers along the hood. The metal was cool. The driver's side mirror had twisted down. Dean fixed it, then felt silly for doing so.

That was twice the Demon had destroyed his home. Just brick, just wood, just metal, just horsepower, but home all the same, and he clenched his other fist to keep his hand from shaking, and tightened his fingers around the mirror.

"Maybe we can rebuild it, son," Dad spoke, unusually tentative.

Dean didn't turn around because he knew his eyes were damp. "I don't think so."

He could already imagine Sam's indignant protest against giving up, but it wasn't giving up. Sometimes gone was gone.

At least this time he hadn't lost his flesh and blood along with his home this time.

Enough. It was enough.

That hell-born Demon wasn't getting one more thing from them. Not so much as a hair on Sam's head, not his father's spirit, not his own life.

Not. One. More. Thing.

_Good-bye._ Dean let go of the mirror slowly, his fingertips lingering for a moment against the glass. _Thank you._

* * *

  
Together, they walked out of the garage. As the three of them started across the yard, Dad put his arm across Sam's shoulders, Dean grasped Sam's good arm for support, and with Sam in the middle they limped back to Bobby's house, alive. 


End file.
